ICRA 2025 Full-day Workshop

Towards Agility and Robustness: Mechanical Intelligence in

Robotics, Biology, and Smart Materials

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May 23, 2025

Georgia World Congress Center, Room 402

Atlanta, GA, USA

ICRA official website page

Description

With robots increasingly deployed in complex and dynamically changing environments, agility and robustness are essential, which requires them to sense, plan, and act autonomously with intelligence. While computational intelligence (CI), focusing on perception, decision-making, and control, has improved the robots’ performance, mechanical intelligence (MI) offers an essential, underutilized approach. Leveraging mechanisms and design that simplify or enhance perception, control, and autonomy through their physical structures, MI enables robots to operate in unstructured, unpredictable environments more robustly and agilely.

In fact, MI is ubiquitous in nature. Biological systems offer invaluable insights into how natural systems use MI to achieve agility and robustness, often far surpassing current robotic capabilities. Thus, studying organisms that locomote and manipulate in complex terrains can reveal principles that can be applied to robotics. Furthermore, smart materials—engineered to respond dynamically to environmental stimuli—can substantially enhance mechanical intelligence by enabling robots to adapt passively to changing conditions. This workshop will explore how MI can be applied to robotics, integrating insights from biology and smart materials to build robots that are agile and/or robust. Invited speakers will share their expertise from diverse angles, exploring how mechanical intelligence can drive advancements in robotic systems and enhance their agility and robustness in real-world applications.

This workshop focuses on advancing the concepts of agility and robustness in robotic locomotion and manipulation, incorporating innovations in mechanical intelligence (MI). Although robotics has achieved remarkable progress, reaching the level of agility and adaptability seen in nature remains a challenge. To tackle this, we aim to foster interdisciplinary discussions involving experts from robotics, biomechanics, physics, and materials science, encouraging fresh perspectives on how MI can improve robot performance in unstructured environments. By bringing together contributors from diverse fields, the workshop will reflect the state-of-the-art in MI, not only within varied robotic systems but also through insights gained from biological systems that demonstrate natural forms of agility and robustness. By understanding principles of how biological organisms achieve complex behaviors in dynamic and unpredictable environments, we can transfer these principles to robotics. This fusion of knowledge will allow us to explore how MI, through developing mechanisms of robot design and interaction with the environment, can enhance the capabilities of robots, pushing them closer to the adaptability and efficiency seen in nature.

We aim to address key questions such as:

How can MI enhance robotic agility and robustness in dynamic environments?
What can we learn from biological systems to improve MI in robots?
How do MI and CI complement each other to create more autonomous, resilient systems?
What role do smart materials play in enabling MI?
How can interdisciplinary approaches push the boundaries of MI in robotics?

Relevant research areas include: bio-inspired robots, biomechanics, biomimetic materials, evolutionary, ethology, mechanical design, natural/passive dynamics, neuroscience, neuromechanics, physical, modeling, physiology, planning/control, robophysics, sensor/actuator, soft matter, soft robotics, smart materials, manufacturing, and many more.

This workshop seeks to achieve several key outcomes:

Foster interdisciplinary collaboration among researchers from diverse fields to generate novel approaches to robotic agility and robustness.
Connect senior experts with younger researchers to encourage mentorship and knowledge exchange, broadening the perspectives brought to these challenges.
Expand the robotics community by introducing new voices and expertise, while promoting diversity in geography, gender, and research background.

By building bridges between fields and focusing on mechanical intelligence, this workshop will bring fresh originality and content to ICRA 2025, helping to drive the next wave of innovation in robotics.

Diversity and Inclusion Statement

Our organizing team is committed to promoting diversity at every level of the workshop. We prioritize representation from underrepresented groups. Our speakers include a diverse group of experts from various disciplines and institutions worldwide, with a strong focus on gender balance. We actively seek to engage participants from different regions and backgrounds, fostering an inclusive platform for interdisciplinary discussions. We are also collaborating with organizations/underrepresented groups to encourage broad participation.

Our workshop at ICRA 2025 will adhere to the RAS guidelines for workshops and tutorials, as well as the IEEE RAS Code of Conduct, ensuring a respectful and inclusive environment for all participants.

Important Dates

Submission Deadline: April 13, 2025 (Anywhere on Earth)

Acceptance Notification: Rolling notification, with final notifications sent by April 15, 2025

Final Submission Deadline:May 18, 2025

Workshop Date: May 23, 2025